$10 gets you 10 tickets for a chance to win 2 4-days passes, airfare for 2 and 4 nights at the Wyndham Bayside, among other things.

Traveling Stories is “a 501c3 nonprofit organization that empowers kid to outsmart poverty by helping them fall in love with reading by the 4th grade” and proceeds will benefit that organization.

Official PR follows:

Traveling Stories and IDW are proud to launch the annual San Diego Comic-Con® sweepstakes, a contest which will last through June 13th at 3:00pm PT.

Those who enter have a chance of winning the following ultimate experience package:● Two 4-day passes to sold-out Comic-Con®
● Airfare for 2 within the continental U.S.
● Four nights stay at the Wyndham Bayside in San Diego Gaslamp district
● An exclusive tour of the San Diego Comic Art Gallery with Ted Adams, CEO of IDW
● Airport pickup and shuttle to the gallery, and then to the hotel

Anyone in the world can enter! $10 gives you 10 chances to win. Each additional $1 is another chance – the math is simple. Every dollar is a donation to Traveling Stories, a 501c3 nonprofit organization that empowers kid to outsmart poverty by helping them fall in love with reading by the 4th grade.

“I’ve always been an avid reader, even when I was little. I’m excited that through this sweepstakes we’re able to raise the funds needed to give kids in underprivileged areas the same literary experience I was lucky enough to have,” said Ted Adams, Founder & CEO of IDW Publishing.

How to snag entries in the sweepstakes is easy, fast, and secure via: bit.ly/comic-con-sweeps. Just follow the steps from there!

“Anyone who does not have tickets to San Diego Comic-Con® would be crazy to not enter this sweepstakes! It’s a full and complete package including a cool tour of the Comic Art Gallery with me,” said Emily Moberly, Founder and CEO of Traveling Stories.

Todd Allen wears a lot of hats. At various times he’s been (alphabetically), a bouncer, college professor, humor columnist, Internet producer and an NBA/WNBA Beat Writer, among other things. He’s the author of Economics of Digital Comics. You should probably read it.

I went through the old mailbag and found some newsy bits I had previously missed.

§ IDW’s CEO/Publisher Ted Adams is joining the Board of Directors for Traveling Stories, a San Diego based non profit that builds libraries in poor cities around the world and provides story coaching at travelling story tents. Okay does it get better than that? you can find out more and how to help here.

“I’ve always been an avid reader, even when I was little. As a publisher, I’m excited to give kids in underprivileged areas around the world the same literary experience I was lucky enough to have,” Adams stated.

With this development, Adams has a platform for sharing his lifelong passion for reading on a global scale and further expanding IDW’s reach in the book-loving community.

If you want to join Adams in supporting Traveling Stories, visit www.travelingstories.org to sign up for updates about the organization and initiatives he is working on. You can also join him in becoming a Reading Warrior and donating $10 per month so Traveling Stories can continue to give children access to books. For a limited time, those who become a Reading Warrior will receive a free Traveling Stories t-shirt of their choice and a free IDW book.

§ Michael Golden is creating limited edition variant covers for The Walking Dead #1 which are available at various Wizard Worlds. Here’s the latest, for Wizard World Comic Con Indianapolis, February 13-15. Everyone gets one FREE (While supplies last). VIP attendees will receive an additional black & white sketch version of the comic.

§ Visionary Comics is running a kickstarter for a comic book called The Cackler. It’s amazing that no one came up with that name before. The world needs a Cackler. (And it’s already been funded.)

§ Viz has announced a new Hello Kitty original graphic novel HELLO KITTY: IT’S ABOUT TIME, with art by Jacob Chabot, Ian McGinty, Jorge Monlongo, and Giovanni Castro, and special guest artist Erica Salcedo. “Past, present or future, Hello Kitty and her friends are having a blast!”

§ Artist Paul Rivoche dropped us a line to let us know he won both the Gold and Silver medals in the “Graphic Novels/Comic Books category of the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles (SILA) Illustration West 53 competition. (All winners shown here.)

The Gold award is for the cover to my graphic novel collaboration with Amity Shlaes and Chuck Dixon, “The Forgotten Man Graphic Edition”, adapting her bestseller of the same name. The other, Silver award, is for my two-page comic contribution titled “Little Nemo In Planeland”, which I wrote and drew for “Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream”, published by Locust Moon Press.

§ Toy Fair is coming!!! Oh boy. Dark Horse will debut a new bust of Criminal Macabre’s Cal McDonald there. It’s designed by William Paquet. Cal MacDonald was created by Steve Niles and he’s a hardboiled supernatural investigator type.

The bust measures a big 14 inches tall. Packaged in a full-color box, with a certificate of authenticity signed by both Niles and Paquet, this hand-painted, numbered piece is limited to only 375 copies. Available August 2015 for $149.99.

The prototype will be revealed at the Dark Horse booth, #4837, at Toy Fair 2015, held February 14–17 at Jacob Javits Center in New York City.

§ FROZEN…one of the most successful and beloved movies of all time, #5 on the ALL TIME WORLDWIDE BOF OFFICE LIST. And of course, there will be more Forozen, starting with with short “Frozen Fever,” in which Anna’s birthday is threatened by a COLD, which sends her powers into sneeze mode. Can Elsa and Kristoff makes sure it’s jjsut a big party? (Maybe they should call Hello Kitty.) Here’s some stills and a featurette. The short debuts on March 13th in front of Cinderella, and the gang is all back: Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff and Josh Gad and directors Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee.

§ Finally: ComicsPRO the annual retailer meeting is also coming, and Valiant came up with perhaps the best promotion evah: Ninjak boxcutters. Might be tought to fly with those, so be sure to put them in CHCKED BAGGAGE.

Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.